'Will Grayson, Will Grayson' & The Secret Lives Of Teen Guys

So I just put down Will Grayson, Will Grayson co-written by John Green and David Levithan and literally could not wait to start writing this post. For the last few pages, I actually struggled with simultaneously wanting to finish it and open my laptop so I could “talk” about it. Eventually I recovered my will power (sorry) and did what had to be done… and now we can finally talk!

If you’ve spent any time in the kidlitosphere lately you probably already caught wind of the much-anticipated collaboration between two YA powerhouses: David Levithan (co-author of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Executive Editorial Director at Scholastic)  and John Green (author of Paper Towns and co-ringleader of Nerdfighters, one of the most awesome online fan communities you’ll ever see). And reading “Will Grayson,” it’s easy to see how both have grown to become the commanding forces they are among teen readers and adult influencers today. The key components? Equal parts honesty and humor.

As I switched between the the two Will Grayson narrators (two Chicagoland teens with the same name. One straight, one gay), what struck me most was not just how much the voices rang true as inner monologues of two real, albeit particularly sensitive, teenage guys. Clearly Green and Leviathan have long perfected the art of channeling their inner adolescent. What really won me over was seeing both use that stream-of-consciousness voice to convincingly show how still waters actually run deep for high school guys be they emo, jock, or just trying to pass through unnoticed. For girl readers, this inner drama is likely to be as reassuring as it is entertaining (dudes! they’re just like us). For guys lucky enough to get their hands on this book (and between the Nerdfighters and the LGBT teen community I suspect plenty will), I see the nuanced picture of boy life and the complicated relationships therein inspiring the same type of comfort as Judy Blume. Though I’d probably avoid mentioning that in my recommendation.

More than anything else, Will Grayson Will Grayson is about learning to understand the friendships that underlie all charged dynamics in our formative years (yes, even with Mom and Dad). In straight Will Grayson’s story that means mainly reassessing a lifelong bond to musical-writing-football-playing-GSA-leading Tiny who seems to have cast Will as his eternal sidekick. For gay Will Grayson it’s painfully recognizing that a shared self-hatred with frenemy Maura brings out the worst in both of them. And for both Wills it means navigating that more-than-friends spark that marks the beginning of your first real relationship for better or worse (be warned: aww-inducing romantic gestures abound).

Along these paths of self-exploration, there’s also a diverse cast of gay teen characters who raise the issues around identity and tolerance that naturally become poignant for LGBT teens and their straight allies. An inclusion that when asked about in a recent EW interview David Levithan said, “It’s essential. And certainly not just for gay character and gay voices.  We need to be detailing all kinds of identities and experiences.  And it’s also important to give our characters complexity — happily, we’re a long, long way from the ‘gay = misery’ school of literature.” Amen to that.

Of course, for all its accuracy in depicting the universal truths of high school life—  the drift that happens when a friend dives head first into an extracurricular, that first note or text you get from a crush—Green and Leviathan still add enough humor and quirk to keep the world of Will Graysons a slightly more charmed version of real life (I mean, the climactic scene takes place during Tiny’s autobiographical musical). Like all the books that made fans fall in love with Levithan and Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson is heartwarming, but still sharp and, as if you couldn’t tell, I highly recommend it.

Side note: I‘d really, really like to see fans re-create Tiny’s musical in a YouTube video. Nerdfighters, I’m looking at you to make it happen.

For more coverage of YA books and publishing, check out the Ypulse Books & Print Channel sponsored by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, publishers of 13 Treasures.